Friday, November 1, 2013

The Foodie’s Place in the Culinary Pecking Order

The
Foodie’s Place in the Culinary Pecking Order

Pecking order is the colloquial term for a hierarchal system
of social organization. For the record, the original usage referred to the
expression of dominance in chickens. With the keen interest in all things
culinary, it should not surprise anyone to learn that there is a gastronomic
pecking order. At the bottom of the gastronomic hierarchy is goinfre (greedy guts), then goulu (glutton), gourmand, (one who
enjoys eating), friand (epicure; one
who with discriminating taste takes pleasure in fine food and drink), gourmet
(a connoisseur of food and drink), and finally the gastronome (one with a
serious interest in gastronomy).

Let’s not overlook “foodie”, a contemporary term that is frequently
and incorrectly used as a synonym for gourmet or epicure. Most people are blind
to the fact that there is a distinct difference in their meanings. The foodie
is an amateur or hobbyist and a gourmet has the educated palate and refined
taste of a professional.

Foodie, like the expression eatery, is a relatively new term
in our modern culinary lexicon. Both of those terms have given me a lot of
flak. The word eatery I am only now shamefully surrendering to after initially
finding the term not only loathsome but unappetizing. My complaint is that “eatery”
is being used inaccurately; it is an interloper on the culinary landscape, evoking
images of cheap, usually inferior restaurants with undiscriminating
all-you-can-eat offerings and other unspeakable horrors. Recently, I have begun
to hear the term eatery to describe fine dining establishments. I am seeing the
expression bandied about in venerated pages of prestigious publications.

With the simultaneous escalation of the food media, food apps
and camera phones I try to keep my mind open to change. Expressions that seemed
to have no root in our culinary lexicon are suddenly ubiquitous.

Some people self-identify as foodies to avoid being
characterized as the type of food snob they associate with old-school gourmets.
When people say to me, “You’re such a foodie” it makes my skin crawl. I don’t
want to be categorized or lumped in with foodies despite their clichéd glory.
The term sounds too much like groupie, and groupie, to my way of thinking, has
the implication of being obsessively indiscriminate. For some reason the word
“foodie” has always seemed too gung ho, too disingenuous and more about status than
anything else. Several people have told me that I am mistaken, that I am a food
snob.

Writing in the Guardian,
Paul Levy, who claims paternity of the term foodie with colleague Ann Barr,
admits that American restaurant critic, food writer and novelist Gael Greene
may have coined the term foodie at about the same time in 1982. “What started
as a term of mockery shifted ground, as writers found that "foodie"
had a certain utility, describing people who, because of age, sex, income and
social class, simply did not fit into the category ‘gourmet’, which we insisted
had become ‘a rude word’.”

We can see how far we have come by a legendary satirical
sketch on the IFC series Portlandia (you can watch it on YouTube) caricaturing foodies
and called, "Is the chicken local?" The episode goes like this:A waitress approaches a man and woman seated
at a table and asks if they’re ready to order. The woman says she’d like to
know more about the chicken. “The chicken is a heritage breed, woodland-raised
chicken that’s been fed a diet of sheep’s milk, soy and hazelnuts,” the
waitress states. “This is local?” the man asks, leaning attentively on his
hand. “Yes,” the waitress replies. “Oregon organic, or Portland organic?” the
woman asks. “It’s just all-across-the-board organic,” the waitress answers. The
waitress leaves for a moment, and then returns with a file. “His name was
Colin,” she says. “Here are his papers.” The questions get more intense and
exhaustive, to the point that the waitress says, “I can’t speak to that level
of intimate knowledge”. The diners then excuse themselves, promising to return
but first they need to see where he was raised and lived, before they eat
“Colin”. Although this
satirical sketch mocks foodies, as consumers we should be aware of where our
food is being sourced.

In my experience, those characterized by the French term goinfre (greedy guts) suffer a ravenous
disposition. They are hard to stomach due to their selfish, insatiable
appetites. Gluttony is often an emotional escape, a sign that something is
eating you. Gluttons indulge their voracious appetites indiscriminately and over-consume
to the point of waste.

Gourmand is an all-encompassing term for acolytes who take
great pleasure in good food but who are routinely unacquainted with etiquette.
They lack the skills of proper refinement while being over-fond of eating.

At the next level, we find the epicure. This term has had a
renaissance but is still sometimes used to lampoon those devoted to the
pleasures of the table. The Oxford
Companion of Food says the term “derived from the Greek philosopher
Epicurus, who declared happiness to be the highest good, which came to mean, in
a food and wine contest, a person of refined tastes.”

Gourmet denotes even more respectability and gravity in
culinary matters. This French term originally meant “cultivated wine-taster.” Gourmets
tend to be discriminating in their eating habits and sophisticated, with a cultivated
and professional interest in culinary matters.

The gastronome has reached the highest level, taking great
strides to comprehend the most subtle nuances of taste. It is a pleasing word, gastronome:
unfortunately it has become archaic. The gastronome’s discerning palate and quest
for illumination have been confused with pretension and snobbery. The fact is
that gastronomy is the study of the art and science of food and the
relationship between food and culture.

I have noticed that gastronomes and foodies have at least
one thing in common: they both seem to have a strong desire to impart their
observations to others.

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Ontario Culinary Tourist

I am a
writer, culinary columnist and food and social media editor in London and
Toronto, Ontario. A chef, former restaurateur and hospitality consultant with
over thirty years in the industry, my work has appeared in a variety of print
and on-line publications. I also freelance written editorial and visual content
for tourism and corporate clients.